“I honestly don’t mind. But I’m having trouble pulling it together. It feels so messy and contrived.”
“Do you want me to have a look at it?”
“I’d love that, but let me do some more work on it first. I would die of embarrassment if you saw it in its present state.”
“In that case deal with it later. But come on now, Andrei, let’s go and at least get something to eat. You can come back and work afterwards if you must,” Blomkvist said. He looked over at Zander.
That memory would stay with him for a long time. Zander was wearing a brown checked jacket and a white shirt buttoned up all the way. He looked like a film star, at any rate even more like a young Antonio Banderas than usual.
“I think I’d better stay and keep plugging away,” he said. “I have something in the fridge which I can microwave.”
Blomkvist wondered if he should pull rank, order him to come out and have a beer. Instead he said:
“O.K., we’ll see each other in the morning. How are they doing out there meanwhile? No drawing of the murderer yet?”
“Seems not.”
“We’ll have to find another solution tomorrow. Take care,” Blomkvist said, getting up and putting on his overcoat.
Salander remembered something she had read about savants a long time ago in Science magazine. It was an article by Enrico Bombieri, an expert in number theory, referring to an episode in Oliver Sacks’ The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat in which a pair of autistic and mentally disabled twins recite staggeringly high prime numbers to each other, as if they could see them before their eyes in some sort of inner mathematical landscape.
What these twins were able to do and what Salander now wanted to achieve were two different things. But there was still a similarity, she thought, and decided to try, however sceptical she might be. So she brought up the encrypted N.S.A. file and her program for elliptic-curve factorization. Then she turned to August. He responded by rocking back and forth.
“Prime numbers. You like prime numbers,” she said.
August did not look at her, or stop his rocking.
“I like them too. And there’s one thing I’m particularly interested in just now. It’s called factorization. Do you know what that is?”
August stared at the table as he continued rocking and did not look as if he understood anything at all.
“Prime-number factorization is when we rewrite a number as the product of prime numbers. By product in this context I mean the result of a multiplication. Do you follow me?”
August’s expression did not change, and Salander wondered if she should just shut up.
“According to the fundamental principles of arithmetic, every whole number has a unique prime-number factorization. It’s pretty cool. We can produce a number as simple as 24 in all sorts of ways, for example by multiplying 12 by 2 or 3 by 8, or 4 by 6. Yet there’s only one way to factorize it with prime-numbers and that’s 2 x 2 x 2 x 3. Are you with me? The problem is, even though it’s easy to multiply prime numbers to produce large numbers, it’s often impossible to go the other way, from the answer back to the prime numbers. A really bad person has used this to code a secret message. Do you understand? It’s a bit like mixing a drink: easy to do but harder to unmix again.”
August neither nodded nor said a word. But at least his body was no longer rocking.
“Shall we see if you’re any good at prime-number factorization, August? Shall we?”
August did not budge.
“I’ll take that as a yes. Shall we start with the number 456?”
August’s eyes were bright but distant, and Salander had the feeling that this idea of hers really was absurd.
It was cold and windy and there were few people out. But Blomkvist thought the cold was doing him good – he was perking up a bit. He thought of his daughter Pernilla and what she said about writing “for real”, and of Salander of course, and the boy. What were they doing right now?
On the way up towards Hornsgatspuckeln he stared for a while at a painting hanging in a gallery window which showed cheerful, carefree people at a cocktail party. At that moment it felt, perhaps wrongly, as if it had been ages since he had last stood like that, drink in hand and without a care in the world. Briefly he longed to be somewhere far away. Then he shivered, suddenly struck by the feeling that he was being followed. Perhaps it was a consequence of everything he had been through in the last few days. He turned round, but the only person near him was an enchantingly beautiful woman in a bright red coat with flowing dark blonde hair. She smiled at him a little uncertainly. He gave her a tentative smile back and was about to continue on his way. Yet his gaze lingered, as if he were expecting the woman to turn at any moment into something more run-of-the-mill.
Instead she became more dazzling with each passing second, almost like royalty, a star who had accidentally wandered in among ordinary people, a gorgeous spread in a fashion magazine. The fact was that right then, in that first moment of astonishment, Blomkvist would not have been able to describe her, or provide even one single detail about her appearance.
“Can I help you?” he said.
“No, no,” she said, apparently shy, and there was no getting away from it: her hesitancy was beguiling. She was not a woman you would have thought to be shy. She looked as if she might own the world.
“Well then, have a nice evening,” he said, and turned again, but he heard her nervously clear her throat.
“Aren’t you Mikael Blomkvist?” she said, even more uncertain now, looking down at the cobbles in the street.
“Yes, I am,” he said, and smiled politely, as he would have done for anybody.
“Well, I just want to say that I’ve always admired you,” she said, raising her head and gazing into his eyes with a long look.
“I’m flattered. But it’s been a long time since I wrote anything decent. Who are you?”
“My name is Rebecka Mattson,” she said. “I’ve been living in Switzerland.”
“And now you’re home for a visit?”
“Only for a short time, unfortunately. I miss Sweden. I even miss November in Stockholm. But I guess that’s how it is when you’re homesick, isn’t it?”
“What do you mean?”
“That you miss even the bad bits.”
“True.”
“Do you know how I cure it all? I follow the Swedish press. I don’t think I’ve missed a single issue of Millennium in the last few years,” she said. He looked at her again, and noticed that every piece of clothing, from the black high-heeled shoes to the checked blue cashmere shawl, was expensive and elegant.
Rebecka Mattson did not look like your typical Millennium reader. But there was no reason to be prejudiced, even against rich expatriate Swedes.
“Do you work there?” he said.
“I’m a widow.”
“I see.”
“Sometimes I get so bored. Were you going somewhere?”
“I was thinking of having a drink and a bite to eat,” he said, at once regretting his reply. It was too inviting, too predictable. But it was at least true.
“May I keep you company?” she asked.
“That would be nice,” he said, sounding unsure. Then she touched his hand – unintentionally, at least that is what he wanted to believe. She still seemed bashful. They walked slowly up Hornsgatspuckeln, past a row of galleries.
“How nice to be strolling here with you,” she said.
“It’s a bit unexpected.”
“So true. It’s not what I was thinking when I woke up this morning.”
“What were you thinking?”
“That the day would be as dreary as ever.”
“I don’t know if I’ll be such good company,” he said. “I’m pretty much immersed in a story.”
“Are you working too hard?”
“Maybe so.”
“Then you need a little break,” she said, giving him a bewitching smile, filled with longing or some sort of promise. At t
hat moment he thought she seemed familiar, as if he had seen that smile before, but in another form, distorted somehow.
“Have we met before?” he said.
“I don’t think so. Except that I’ve seen you a thousand times in pictures, and on T.V.”
“So you’ve never lived in Stockholm?”
“When I was a little girl.”
“Where did you live then?”
She pointed vaguely up Hornsgatan.
“Those were good times,” she said. “Our father took care of us. I often think about him. I miss him.”
“Is he no longer alive?”
“He died much too young.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you. Where are we headed?”
“Well,” he said, “there’s a pub just up Bellmansgatan, the Bishops Arms. I know the owner. It’s quite a nice place.”
“I’m sure …”
Once again she had that diffident, shy look on her face, and once again her hand happened to brush against his fingers – this time he wasn’t so sure it was accidental.
“Perhaps it isn’t fancy enough?”
“Oh, I’m sure it’s fine,” she said apologetically. “It’s just that people tend to stare at me. I’ve come across so many bastards in pubs.”
“I can believe that.”
“Wouldn’t you …?”
“What?”
She looked down at the ground again and blushed. At first he thought he was seeing things. Surely adults don’t blush like that? But Rebecka Mattson from Switzerland, who looked like seven million dollars, went red like a little schoolgirl.
“Wouldn’t you like to invite me to your place instead, for a glass of wine or two?” she said. “That would be nicer.”
“Well …” He hesitated.
He badly needed to sleep, to be in good shape for tomorrow. Yet he said:
“Of course. I’ve got a bottle of Barolo in the wine rack,” and for a second he thought something exciting might be about to happen after all, as if he were about to embark on an adventure.
But his uncertainty would not abate. At first he could not understand why. He did not normally have a problem with this kind of situation – he had more success than most when it came to women flirting with him. This particular encounter had developed very quickly, but he was not unused to that either. So it was something about the woman herself, wasn’t it?
Not only was she young and exceptionally beautiful and should have had better things to do than chase after burned-out, middle-aged journalists. It was something in her expression, and in the way she switched between bold and shy, and the physical contact. Everything he had at first found spontaneous increasingly seemed to him to be affected.
“How lovely, and I won’t stay long. I don’t want to spoil your story,” she said.
“I’ll take full responsibility for any spoiled stories,” he said, and tried to smile back.
It was a forced smile and in that instant he caught a strange twitch in her eyes, a sudden icy chill which in a second turned into its very opposite, full of affection and warmth, like an acting exercise. He became more convinced that there was something wrong. But he had no idea what, and did not want his suspicions to show, at least not yet. What was going on? He wanted to understand.
They continued on up Bellmansgatan – not that he was thinking of taking her back to his place any longer, but he needed time to figure her out. He looked at her again. She really was gorgeous. Yet it occurred to him that it was not her beauty which had first captivated him. It was something else, something more elusive. Just then he saw Rebecka Mattson as a riddle to which he ought to have the answer.
“A nice part of town, this,” she said.
“It’s not bad.” He looked up towards the Bishops Arms.
Diagonally across from the pub, just a bit higher up by the crossroads with Tavastgatan, a scrawny, lanky man in a black cap was standing under a streetlight studying a map. A tourist. He had a brown suitcase in his other hand and white sneakers and a black leather jacket with its fur collar turned up, and under normal circumstances Blomkvist would not have given him a second glance.
But now he observed that the man’s movements were nervous and unnatural. Perhaps Blomkvist was suspicious to begin with, but the distracted way he was handling the map seemed more and more contrived. Now he raised his head and stared straight at Blomkvist and the woman, studying them for a brief second. Then he looked down at his map again, seeming ill at ease, almost trying to hide his face under the cap. The bowed, almost timid head reminded Blomkvist of something, and again he looked into his companion’s dark eyes.
His look was persistent and intense. She gazed at him with affection, but he did not reciprocate; instead he scrutinized her. Then her expression froze. Only in that moment did Blomkvist smile.
He smiled because suddenly the penny had dropped.
CHAPTER 22
23.xi, Evening
Salander got up from the table. She did not want to pester August any longer. The boy was under enough pressure as it was and her idea had been crazy from the start.
One always expects too much of these poor savants, and what August had done was already impressive. She went out onto the terrace again and gingerly felt the area around the bullet wound, which was still aching. She heard a sound behind her, a hasty scratching on paper, so she turned and went back inside. When she saw what August had written, she smiled:
She sat down and said, without looking at him this time, “O.K.! I’m impressed. But let’s make this a little harder. Have a go at 18,206,927.”
August was hunched over the table and Salander thought it might have been unkind to throw an eight-digit figure at him right away. But if they were to stand any chance of getting what she needed they would need to go much higher than that. She was not surprised to see August begin to sway nervously back and forth. But after a few seconds he leaned forward and wrote on his paper: 9419 × 1933.
“Good. How about 971,230,541?”
August wrote: 983 × 991 × 997.
“That’s great,” Salander said, and on they went.
Outside the black, cube-like office building in Fort Meade with its reflective glass walls, not far from the big radome with its dish aerials, Casales and Needham were standing in the packed car park. Needham was twirling his car keys and looking beyond the electric fence in the direction of the surrounding woods. He should be on his way to the airport, he said, he was late already. But Casales did not want to let him leave. She had her hand on his shoulder and was shaking her head.
“That’s twisted.”
“It’s out there,” he said.
“So every one of the handles we’ve picked up for people in the Spider Society – Thanos, Enchantress, Zemo, Alkhema, Cyclone and the rest – what they have in common is that they’re all …”
“Enemies of Wasp in the original comic-book series, yes.”
“That’s insane.”
“A psychologist would have fun with it.”
“This kind of fixation must run deep.”
“I get the feeling it’s real hatred,” he said.
“You will look after yourself over there, won’t you?”
“Don’t forget I used to be in a gang.”
“That’s a long time ago, Ed, and many kilos ago too.”
“It’s not a question of weight. What is it they say? You can take the boy out of the ghetto …”
“Yes, yes.”
“You can never get rid of it. Besides, I’ll have help from the N.D.R.E. in Stockholm. They’re itching as much as I am to put that hacker out of action once and for all.”
“What if Ingram finds out?”
“That wouldn’t be good. But, as you can imagine, I’ve been preparing the ground a bit. Even exchanged a word or two with O’Connor.”
“I figured as much. Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Yep.”
“Shoot.”
“Ingram’s cr
ew seems to have had full insight into the Swedish police investigation.”
“They’ve been eavesdropping on the police?”
“Either that or they have a source, maybe an ambitious soul at Säpo. If I put you together with two of my best hackers, you could do some digging.”
“Sounds risky.”
“O.K., forget it.”
“That wasn’t a no.”
“Thanks, Alona. I’ll send info.”
“Have a good trip,” she said, as Needham smiled defiantly and got into his car.
Looking back, Blomkvist could not explain how he had worked it out. It might have been something in the Mattson woman’s face, something unknown and yet familiar. The perfect harmony of that face might have reminded him of its very opposite, and that together with other hunches and misgivings gave him the answer. True, he was not yet absolutely sure of it. But he had no doubt that something was very wrong.
The man now walking off with his map and brown suitcase was the very figure he had seen on the security camera in Saltsjöbaden, and that coincidence was too improbable not to be of some significance, so Blomkvist stood there for a few seconds and thought. Then he turned to the woman who called herself Rebecka Mattson and tried to sound confident:
“Your friend is heading off.”
“My friend?” she said, genuinely surprised. “What friend?”
“Him up there,” he said, pointing at the man’s skeletal back as he sauntered gawkily down Tavastgatan.
“Are you joking? I don’t know anyone in Stockholm.”
“What do you want from me?”
“I just want to get to know you, Mikael,” she said, fingering her blouse, as if she might undo a button.
“Stop that!” he said roughly, and was about to lose his temper when she looked at him with such vulnerable, piteous eyes that he was thrown. For a moment he thought he had made a mistake.
“Are you cross with me?” she said, hurt.
“No, but …”
“What?”
“I don’t trust you,” he said, more bluntly than he intended.
She smiled sadly and said, “I can’t help feeling that you’re not quite yourself today, are you, Mikael? We’ll have to meet some other time instead.”
The Girl in the Spider's Web (Millennium series Book 4) Page 31
